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Contents

Firehearts know that the fires of the mortal world cannot
quite compare to the flames of Faerie — and these changelings are grateful for it. In Arcadia, the fire bound into them
burned much hotter, consuming their ever-regenerating flesh.
As painful as the trip through the Hedge was, reaching home
was like finding paradise again, if only for a short time. The
fire within a Fireheart is now a source of uncomfortable heat
at best, and mortal flames seem so much friendlier by compare. For this reason, many Firehearts are among the changelings most violently opposed to returning to Arcadia in any
manner. Too many remember Faerie as a place of pain.

Firehearts are typically slender and graceful, as though
their excess fat and muscle were melted away. Their hair
may flicker like phantom flame, or fires may burn in their
eyes. Some appear to have a furnace in their bellies, a
glow lighting the back of their throats and smoke escaping
when they speak. The fire that fuels them may be red and
orange and yellow, but many Firehearts display different
hues — the pale blue of a white-hot heat, the lambent
green of a Faerie balefire, the rich violets and deep reds of
a bonfire fed on stranger fuels.

Many Firehearts were altered deliberately to
serve as living flames, for illumination or warmth or even
to act as walking cook fires. These purposes gave them
opportunity to interact with other stolen changelings, and
a number of Firehearts escaped alongside the Wizened
cooks that ran their kitchens or the Fairest entertainers
that pulled Firehearts down from their sconces.

Wild Firehearts are much rarer, because so few can be
thrown on the fires of Faerie and survive. Yet, sometimes
that’s exactly what happened; a captive was disposed of
and yet somehow survived, the flame taking mercy upon
him. Other Firehearts may simply have tended great festival bone-fires, beacon flames or great ovens until the heat
and light kindled within them.

Some Firehearts are akin to the faeries of
hearth fires and hospitality, but the majority are wilder in
nature. They are akin to the salamander or the fire alf, as
hungry as Agni or Loki. The burning faeries that acted
as their Keepers were highly mercurial in nature, and frequently destructive.

Firehearts may, just as Wizened,
have been attached to the forges of mythic crafters — immense one-eyed smiths, deformed dwarves and the like.
A few such forge-touched suffer from some physical flaw,
such as the Cyclopeans; the lame or deformed smith is a
recurring figure in myth. They may also be tied to the willo’-the-wisp or lightning-spirits; a Fireheart, such as Grandfather Thunder, need not be a creature of pure flame.